UFC Fight Venue Construction Takes Over White House Thanks to Trump

Construction has begun on the ring for the “UFC Freedom 250” mixed martial arts event, on June 14 at the White House.

Pieces of the blue and white ring could be seen dwarfing the building Tuesday. The structure, according to what President Trump told reporters last month, will be able to hold 4,500 fans for the event, which coincides with Flag Day and Trump’s 80th birthday. An additional 75,000 to 100,000 people will be able to view the contests for free on “massive screens” set up at the Ellipse park south of the White House.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has released renderings of the octagonal cage on the White House lawn, as well as the massive screen setup on the Ellipse. An arch covered with stars is visible in front of the White House, soaring high above the building, with the cage in front of it.

Staging such an event has attracted criticism for multiple reasons, not least among them the fact that it’s a cash grab for Trump and UFC CEO Dana White. Sponsorship packages for the fights including ringside seats are going for as much as $1.5 million, and neither the White House nor the UFC has said where the money is going.

While tickets are technically free, the president and the fight organizations are choosing who gets in, and that could include anyone from business executives to foreign leaders. White told The New Yorker this month that he has 200 tickets to give out, while Trump has 1,000. The CEO of UFC’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings, Ari Emanuel, has 200 tickets to distribute, according to White, and the rest of the tickets will allegedly go to members of the U.S. military. But the whole process is extremely opaque.

The event will include weigh-ins held at the Lincoln Memorial, various fan events on the National Mall, fireworks, and a light show, and will supposedly cost $60 million. While the UFC is paying for the White House ring’s construction, it’s not paying for the gargantuan security costs, which will be covered by taxpayers. Making America Great Again, indeed.

The “Broadview Six,” the anti-ICE protesters whom the federal government tried to slap with felony conspiracy charges carrying a maximum sentence of six years in prison, had their case thrown out last week after District Judge April Perry determined top federal prosecutor Andrew Boutros botched the case.

Things are now getting even worse for Boutros and his team.

Christopher Parente, an attorney for one of the six defendants, suggested on Tuesday that Boutros had improper personal contact with the grand jury. After the allegation came to light, Perry summoned the lawyers present to discuss the matter privately in her chamber.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said her fellow prosecutors would likely accept the release of grand jury transcripts, subject to redactions, so the public may be able to see what kind of personal contact Boutros had with the jurors in the future.

The “Broadview Six” were arrested after surrounding an ICE agent’s SUV outside a detention center in Broadview, Illinois, in September in an attempt to slow it down. The crowd “pushed and scratched and otherwise damaged,” the vehicle, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Like many charges made against anti-ICE protesters, the government’s over-the-top prosecution failed to hold up. The government first gave up on charging two of the six. Then they threw out conspiracy charges against the other four—Brian Straw, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin, and then–congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh—and instead tried to convict them of a far less serious crime: one misdemeanor count each for impeding a federal agent.

In the end, Boutros couldn’t even do that. He dropped the charges with prejudice—meaning they cannot be refiled—after being criticized by Perry for more grand jury misconduct. Boutros’s assistants took transcripts of themselves explaining conspiracy law to the jury pool, then reportedly redacted some of the transcripts when Perry asked for them.

According to the Sun-Times, these transcripts included proof of one prosecutor staking her personal credibility in order to support the charges, another communicating with jurors outside the assigned jury room, and a third excusing jurors who didn’t agree with the prosecution’s argument.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing fire from his own people.

The U.S. health secretary has angered anti-vax activists by extending liability protections to drugmakers working on a hantavirus vaccine.

Kennedy signed a Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness, or PREP, Act declaration late last week, giving pharmaceutical companies additional legal coverage as they work on experimental treatments—such as favipiravir—during the public health crisis.

“This action helps remove barriers to research and response efforts while we continue monitoring the recent outbreak linked to the South Atlantic cruise ship,” Kennedy wrote on X earlier this month.

The expanded legal protections permit the companies to treat passengers possibly exposed to the Andes hantavirus strain, or individuals who were in close contact with people on board the M/V Hondius cruise ship.

But acolytes of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda were not swayed. One such skeptical supporter was Kennedy’s former campaign communications director Del Bigtree, who questioned whether Kennedy was sticking to his guns on corporate accountability.

“Bobby, I remember so many inspiring strategy discussions during your campaign. Providing liability protection to corporate interests for a virus that killed three people out of seven billion was not one of them,” Bigtree wrote.

Kennedy, however, was undeterred.

“Don’t believe Internet fearmongers. [The Department of Health and Human Services] defends public health AND supports medical freedom—period,” Kennedy wrote in a separate post over the weekend, underscoring that the latest HHS action doesn’t pave the way for a new mRNA vaccine or offer Big Pharma limitless protections from liability.

More than 40 people in the U.S. are currently being monitored in connection to a hantavirus outbreak aboard a Rotterdam-bound cruise ship last month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there are currently no cases in the U.S. and that risk to the general public remains “extremely low.” So far, the rare disease has caused 11 confirmed infections and three deaths in connection with the ship.

A Dutch couple were identified by the WHO as the first passengers infected with the virus. It is believed that they were exposed to the virus while birdwatching at an Argentinian landfill. Both the husband and wife died as a result.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has been embroiled in a yearlong lawsuit with two former clients who have accused him of malpractice and forgery.

Vanity Fair reported that twin brothers Adam and Daniel Kaplan, both New York financial advisers, sought Blanche’s services through the Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft law firm in 2021 over concerns they would soon be prosecuted for fraud by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The brothers claimed that Blanche told them they’d receive a massive discount from the firm, and that he “did not want to make money on the representation.”

Yet just a year later, the Kaplans owed Blanche and Cadwalader over $1.65 million. Blanche pulled his representation in 2022 over the debt, and the Kaplans sued the following year, accusing him of forging their signatures on an engagement document and misleading them regarding the fees. Blanche and Cadwalader denied all allegations, and countersued the twins for their debt of more than $1 million in 2023—the same year Blanche became Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and just two years before Blanche became the most powerful prosecutor in America.

The Kaplans were later convicted on 16 counts of money laundering and wire fraud, in July 2023, one month after they filed their lawsuit. But they still haven’t dropped their suit, which raises serious questions about the attorney general’s ethics. The case is expected to continue through the year.

White House staffers are losing their minds over media coverage pointing out that the president often falls asleep on camera. 

The Trump administration’s Rapid Response 47 X account spent much of Tuesday attacking CNN with photos and short videos of the network’s hosts blinking or looking down, facetiously claiming that they were sleeping or showing signs of decline. 

The schoolyard taunts began just after 12:30 p.m., taking aim at CNN personalities including Kate Bolduan, Kevin Liptak, Dana Bash, Jake Tapper (calling him FAKE TAPPER), and Brianna Keilar, posting photos of all of them with story chyrons about Trump’s health. Even guests who don’t work for the network but were interviewed about Trump’s sleeping habits, such as The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey and Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Jeremy Faust, were targeted.

Earlier in the day, President Trump went to Walter Reed for his third medical checkup in 13 months. CNN has been covering the event, pointing to past incidents that raise concerns about the president’s health. Trump said Tuesday that “everything checked out PERFECTLY” at his visit, but did not offer more details.

The White House press office has often resorted to trolling in the past, including using “your mom” taunts against reporters it disagrees with. White House communications director Steven Cheung has basically made hurling insults at reporters his full-time job, and called Democratic Senate staffer Rachel Cohen a “retard” last month.  

It also does little to combat the indisputable evidence of Trump’s visible cognitive decline and his issues staying awake. At nearly every televised meeting during his second term as president, Trump can be seen dozing off as someone else speaks, whether it’s a member of his Cabinet or even a foreign leader. White House staffers can make all of the sarcastic social media posts they want, but all of us can plainly see Trump’s physical condition every time he’s on camera.